I would hope that my readers feel a sense of awe at the quality of human endurance, at the endurance of love in the face of a variety of difficulties; that the quotidian life is not always easy, and is something worthy of respect.

You surely know that in the course of a long marriage it is not unusual for a husband or a wife to develop a crush on someone else.

And yet, standing behind her son, waiting for the traffic light change, she remembered how in the midst of it all there had been a time when she'd felt a loneliness so deep that once, not so many years ago, having a cavity filled, the dentist's gentle turning of her chin with his soft fingers had felt to her like a tender kindness of almost excruciating depth, and she had swallowed with a groan of longing, tears springing to her eyes.

Traits don't change, states of mind do.

Bullies are just frightened people.

Or maybe, he thought, returning to the boxes, it was part of being Catholic--you were made to feel guilty about everything

The key to contentment was to never ask why; she had learned that long ago.